Bluebeard of Pitt Lake or the lost gold mine, by L.G. ... - Slumach

Newspapers and Magazines 1900s
Colonist 29 March 1953
Bluebeard of Pitt Lake Or the Lost Gold Mine
By L.O. Temple
Enthusiastic tourists have been known, after a visit to British
Columbia, to say the province has “everything.” Of course,
local residents have known that for years! Quite a few, both
among natives, immigrants, and tourists, however, have
never heard of a B.C. prototype of the legendary “bluebeard,”
who was hanged at New Westminster over 50 year ago. He
might have been termed a bluebeard with improvements; he
started by executing wives, came to a well-deserved end for
murdering a man, and indirectly was probably responsible
for a number of men since. In fact, another victim was probably
added to his score this winter! We hasten to add to add
that he wasn’t native to this province but came from east of
the Rockies originally.
Gold Hunters
Known by the euphonious name of “Slum,” he prospected
the mountains north of Pitt Lake year after year during the
nineties, like many other gold hunters. Unlike the majority,
after a few years he started coming out in the fall with gold
dust and nuggets in quantities sufficient to spend the following
winter having a high time in New Westminster and
Vancouver. Each spring, broke, he would again set out for the
mountains with his Indian wife; they would go to the head of
Pitt Lake by canoe, and then take to the tall timber. Of course
he was frequently followed by envious fellow prospectors but
always managed to elude them not far from the lake. Back
he’d come when the leaves began to fall with a poke of nice
new gold to another winter’s celebration.
Excess Cargo
However, he wasn’t as fortunate with his wives. In fact, they
never succeeded in sharing the celebration; every year they
got themselves drowned somewhere near Siwash Rock,
near the south end of Pitt Lake. At this point no more heavy
packing was required and Slum could get the gold back to
civilization easily by himself. Finally he overreached himself
by applying the same technique to a trailing half-breed prospector
that he had successfully used for his wives for several
years; he drowned him near the same old Siwash Rock. This
time it was the case of the pitcher going too often to the
well, and after a chase he was caught by Constable Moresby
of the Provincial Police. In due course he was convicted and
hanged, about 1900, but he never told where he used to get
the gold.
Bluebeard of Pitt Lake Or
the Lost Gold Mine
slumach.ca

Newspapers and Magazines 1900s
Search Failed
Logically, that should have ended the death that he had been
causing, but human nature being what it is, men having been
dying ever since, trying to find what has come to be known as
the lost Pitt Lake Mine. The first of a respectable list was an
old Yukon sourdough named John Jackson, who came down
from the north in 1903, heard about Slum’s continuous supply
of nuggets and set off up Pitt Lake that spring. Months
later he crawled into an Indian camp at the head of the lake.
With him he had a heavy bag, which he wouldn’t let out
of his sight while the natives nursed him until he was well
enough to get out to the railroad. He went to San Francisco,
where he deposited $8,700 in the branch of the Bank of British
North America.
Sold His Map
He wrote a friend named Shotwell, in Alaska, enclosing a
map, and then died from the effects of his trip to the bonanza.
Shotwell sold his share in the map to a Seattle man,
who made several unsuccessful trips. In Jackson’s letter to
Shotwell he said the gold was in handfuls, but unfortunately
some of the letter was illegible and the map had been drawn
from memory, after he got back, and was hard to understand.
At any rate, no one has found the gold yet, although some 20
people have presumably been killed trying. They go into the
tangled web of mountain valleys north of the lake, and they
just don’t come back. It’s a rugged country, and there is a lot
of it. In the mid-thirties another sourdough with the picturesque
name of Volcanic Brown spent a summer there, and
came out with feet frozen. He tried again the following season,
and didn’t come back. His frozen corpse may lie in the
depth of a glazier, or his bleached bones my be disintegrating
at the bottom of some cliff; there are many ways to die in the
rocky defiles an precipitous peaks of the coast range.
Latest Victim
Recently another seeker for the Pitt Lake gold hasn’t come
out. A police search was considered; but it would be looking
for a needle in the proverbial haystack to find a man in those
mountain masses. No doubt the bones of this latest prospector
will be uncovered, but it is doubtful if they are ever seen
by anyone but a roaming bear or wolf. No doubt some day a
new gold rush may start into the country north of Pitt Lake:
but according to the record piled up so far, there are many
easier and less dangerous ways to get rich. After all, if you
lose out on your ticket on the Irish sweepstakes, you only lost
three and a half bucks, and you don’t have to climb a lot of
perpendicular pieces of real estate to do it!
slumach.ca